In March 2021, Alex Casimo and Leonard Lancia quit Citadel Securities to set up a firm to make markets in cryptoassets. The London-based duo raised $50m to fund the business and Portofino Technologies formally launched in 2022.

The pair had tough non-compete clauses in their Citadel employment contracts but they assumed their move would be fine: Citadel was not involved in the crypto business and founder Ken Griffin had been publicly very dismissive about crypto.